The following opinion is from Doug Edgeton, President and CEO of the North Carolina Biotechnology Center:

As I look back on 2024, I think about the 32,000 biopharma manufacturing employees statewide who produce vaccines, gene therapies and drugs that help people worldwide live longer, healthier lives.

I also think about how far North Carolina has come in creating job opportunities in the life sciences. With the recent announcements of companies expanding in North Carolina, we can easily forget that North Carolina was among the poorest states in the 1950s. It has taken decades to bring North Carolina to where it is today.

When state leaders went to work on improving our economy, they wisely created Research Triangle Park and our community college system in the late 1950s.

In the 1980s, when the furniture, textiles and tobacco industries were declining, our state leaders looked ahead to the then-nascent life sciences and technology industries to create a better future — especially for young people entering the workforce.

As we think about our achievements as a state in 2024, we should remember that we continue to build on that successful foundation with a statewide, collaborative, tech-forward approach to job creation, particularly in the life sciences. Recent company expansion announcements, just in the first half of 2024, are testimony to that and include:

• Kyowa Kirin, a Japanese global specialty pharmaceutical company, plans to invest more than $200 million in Sanford to build its first pharmaceutical manufacturing complex in North America, adding more than 100 new jobs.
• FUJIFILM Diosynth Biotechnologies, a global contract development and manufacturing organization, plans to invest $1.2 billion to nearly double the size of its Holly Springs manufacturing facility currently under construction, adding as many as 680 jobs.
• Neopac recently announced its plans for a $10 million expansion in Wilson, adding a new line to its facility there.
• SCHOTT Pharma USA will be investing $371 million in a new facility to manufacture pre-fillable syringes
• Nipro’s $397.8 million investment in Pitt County.
• In the largest capital investment ever in North Carolina’s life sciences, Novo Nordisk plans to invest $4.1 billion to expand its operations in Johnston County, creating 1,000 new jobs.

There’s no single reason these companies chose to locate or expand in North Carolina, but availability of talent and our well-established training infrastructure are among them.

At the center of that infrastructure are our universities and community colleges. The North Carolina Biotechnology Center collaborates with these partners to ensure training partners are delivering the job-ready talent that industry needs.

Some training programs reach into high schools to provide recent graduates with foundational skills for entry-level biomanufacturing jobs. A great example is NCGrads2Work. Part of our Accelerate NC initiative, funded by $25 million from the federal Build Back Better Regional Challenge grant, the program teaches Pitt County high school graduates the skills many pharmaceutical manufacturers need in Greenville and the surrounding areas.

Another example is the Military Outreach and Veterans Engagement (MOVE) initiative, launched by the NCBiotech in 2019. It helps place transitioning service members, honorably discharged veterans, and military spouses into biomanufacturing training and internships, paving the way for full-time positions.

Collaborations between industry, government and education have been fruitful in North Carolina and have benefited our economy as well as the workers and families who have greater financial stability and bright futures with abundant career opportunities.

We celebrate the great leadership that laid the foundation for our life sciences sector to prosper. And, as we relish the accomplishments of 2024, we salute the workforce who make a positive global impact with the lifesaving medicines they produce.

The preceding article originally appeared on November 27, 2024 at BusinessNC’s website and is made available here for educational purposes only. This constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Title 17 U.S.C. section 106A-117 of the U.S. Copyright Law.